


The Seam Was Never Seen

by Enisy



Category: Lovecraft Country (TV)
Genre: Body Horror, Canon-Typical Racism, Character Study, F/F, Gender or Sex Swap, Horror, Lovecraftian Monster(s), Masturbation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-07
Updated: 2021-01-07
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:16:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28485231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Enisy/pseuds/Enisy
Summary: Ruby takes William’s body for a ride.Christina is awfully encouraging about the whole thing.
Relationships: Ruby Baptiste/Christina Braithwhite
Comments: 4
Kudos: 26
Collections: Holiday Horror 2020





	The Seam Was Never Seen

**Author's Note:**

  * For [vachtar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/vachtar/gifts).



It’s always messy as hell, tissue and lymph and offal in different shades of brown, and enough blood to summon a Baal or a Beelzebub. Her lady friend had been right to liken it to a birth. Ruby moans as her muscles twist and contort, her bones crack, and strange, uneven lumps drift just below the surface of her skin, like peas in a blasphemous pod. Even the pain has something natal about it.

Black Woman Turns White. That has already proven to be a show-stopper, crowd-pleaser, head-turner.

Today, she’ll do them one better.

“Have fun with William,” Christina tells her on the way out. She’s curled up on the same sofa where Ruby had sat dripping gore that first night after she shed Hillary, and she’s fiddling with some kinda wooden toy, looks like a suspension bridge. Another one of her witchy thingamajigs. Christina is dressed like a man herself today, hair bob and pants and shoulder straps, the whole shebang. It almost hurts to watch: she’s not fooling anyone.

“I intend to,” Ruby replies. Her gruff tone is made worse by William’s gruff, masculine voice. It startles her a bit. “Don’t worry,” she adds, “it’s not gonna be a regular thing. I know there can’t be two of us runnin’ around Chicago at the same time.”

Sedately: “Becoming William is not the height of my aspirations, Ruby. You can keep him as long as you want.” The corners of her lips quirk up. “Run along now.”

She sounds incredibly nonchalant, as if she’s sending Ruby off to a play date with a friend. Actually, she’s not far off the mark.

“Okay, then,” says William with a certain wariness. “I’ll be back in the evening.” He nods once, briskly, as he leaves the building. His footsteps fall heavy on the sidewalk, like capital punishment, like the law of the land.

In spite of everything that’s happened between her and Christina, Ruby still isn’t sure that she’s attracted to women. They’re soft and shapely, sure, and easy on the eye, but that is an aesthetic judgment anyone could make. Do they make her blood quicken? Does time slow down, like when she sings on stage or dances or drinks something fizzy? She is not certain.

This isn’t about that, anyway.

“I was surprised when I got your invitation,” Cathy says bashfully. “Did you and Hillary –”

“I don’t want to talk about her today.” Once again, William sounds curt, irritable. For decades, Ruby has had to speak loudly and plainly to make sure she’s heard over her color, her gender, but now she feels the need to dial it back. “She… does not factor into this.”

“Oh.” Her coworker is out of breath, practically panting. “Good.”

During their outing on the South Side last month, Cathy had gone on a full ten-minute rant about a waiter who was ‘giving her lip.’ But she doesn’t seem to mind the same attitude from William. One cocktail in, her hands are reaching up to nudge a lock that’s just barely, artfully out of place, while her chest heaves and puffs out. It’s all rather pathetic.

“I like the way you dress,” she croons. “I work in a department store, so I know a thing or two about fashion, and lemme tell you – not a lot of men have a handle on complementary colors. My last sweetheart wore purple on _green_. But he was colorblind, so at least he had that excuse. I’m not boring you, am I?”

“Not at all,” William lies.

Ruby had considered giving her… maybe a lighter version of the Paul Hughes treatment. But she can’t. She can’t bring herself to do it. As soon as William pushes her against the wall, calls her names, Cathy bats her eyelashes and bares her neck like a vanquished animal. There is nothing even remotely satisfying about it. The names that _she_ had used are momentarily stripped of potency: _Safari. Negro._ _Jungle._ _South._

“William? Is something the matter?”

“I – actually, yes. Excuse me.”

And just like that, William pleads a forgotten obligation and cuts the evening short. Cathy accepts this graciously, although her nervous, halting gestures intimate she’s going to cry herself to sleep tonight, chip at her cracked heart until it breaks. The image of the vanquished animal persists. Turns out it was a feckless rodent all along, a squirrel or a rat.

Weak. Unworthy of her attention.

By the time she drags William’s body home, Ruby is feeling pent up, restless. Unfortunately, Christina is still out, probably on one of her secret errands. Ruby collapses on the bed with a groan. The neighborhood is peaceful as always, no ambience but the occasional car driving by, so every noise she makes is larger than the sum of its parts. Absently, she reaches down, palms the mound of her crotch. She does not mean to start anything – only to dream, to drift – but her interest grows by the second. The mound becomes a hill, and she kicks William’s pants off.

It should freak her out, and yet it doesn’t. Being Hillary has already rendered The Body an ephemeral concept: a bunch of cells that die and die and spawn anew – that cannot possibly contain who she is, or who she considers herself to be. As she moves her palm up and down, trying out different things, calibrating her rhythm, her thoughts turn to William’s previous inhabitant. _T_ _his is how Christina likes_ _me to touch her._

The realization knocks something askew in her stomach. She plants both feet on the mattress, thinking about Christina-as-William, and then really just Christina. Her breathing shifts.

 _This is_ _how Christina_ _joins her body to mine._ _This is what gets Christina going._ _T_ _his is_ _how_ _Christina feels_ _when_ _she’s fucking me._ _This. This._

Her second time with William goes better. The third time, a police officer enlists her help in locating a bar on the North Side, with a bawdy joke and a slap on the shoulder. And the fourth time, she fucks Christina until she squeals, one leg held to the side, the other propped up on William’s shoulder. It’s exhilarating. It does not take long before Dell’s body is collecting dust in the basement.

Ruby feels she’s been granted a new lease on life. Even Hillary, for all her privilege, could not have guessed how many doors remain closed to her because of the void between her legs. It’s like starting a round of Monopoly with half the squares under her ownership. Or playing chess with a vanguard of queens.

One thing bothers her, though – and that’s that Christina _isn’t_ bothered. In the past, she used to wear William’s skin almost as often as her own. She has encouraged Ruby’s experiments from the beginning, but even so, it’s kinda puzzling that she doesn’t miss it.

A month into this new arrangement, back in her own body, Ruby finds out why.

The basement door has been locked for a while now, but one day, by chance or by design, it clicks open when she tries the handle. As usual, the grilled window admits little natural light. The basement is illuminated in patches, chiefly around writing surfaces, where fluorescent lamps have been placed. Christina is at the foot of the stairs already, stooped over a thick hardback, humming lines from some old nursery rhyme. _They sent for the king’_ _s_ _doctor,_ _w_ _ho sewed it on again;_ _h_ _e sewed it on so neatly, the seam was never seen…_ She looks up when Ruby enters.

“Finally, you’re here,” she says. The hardback has slipped from her hands, forgotten. “I’ve been waiting for you, Ruby. I want to show you something.”

“What is it?”

‘It’ is a formless mass of black, rubbery, ichorous flesh, sealed in some kind of tank. Its body seems unstable, ever contracting and expanding, like a cake that won’t set right. There is a lamp nearby, but its light does not fall upon the creature; rather, it gets sucked into it, like a neverending state of despair. As they watch, the abomination seems to sprout more mouths: dozens, myriads of them. More writhing, tentacle-like limbs. And more eyes, greenly glowing with a keen, alien intelligence.

“A vessel,” replies Christina. “Perhaps.”

Things have to get this bad before Ruby understands: it’s not possible to meet Christina halfway. Not when the end line is _immortality_ , _invulnerability_ , _imperviousness_ , the same bold prefix attached to the sum total of human weaknesses. Ruby might be a step behind Christina, but she’s still walking. And unless someone jumps into her path – Marvin – Tic – one of the other Braithwhites – _Leti_ – she ain’t likely to stop.

That’s what Christina likes about her, maybe.

For a few wordless seconds, Ruby simply sizes up the creature. One of the lamps fizzles and dies, throwing new shadows on the wall. The air smells of tar and formaldehyde, something acidic.

“It’s got so many eyes,” she marvels. “What must the world look like through so many eyes?”

A rare warmth slithers into Christina’s empty, vitreous stare.

“I suppose,” she says, “that we will find out.”

**Author's Note:**

> The monster is a classic [Shoggoth](https://monster.fandom.com/wiki/Shoggoth), in case you’re wondering.
> 
> I'm [enisywrites](https://enisywrites.tumblr.com/) on Tumblr. Come on over if you want to drop me a prompt or a question, or if you just want to say hi!


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